cli-fi is a fiction genre that might be helpful in waking people up and serving as an alarm bell.

‘Cli-fi’ is now certainly starting to gain a higher profile, but whether the genre will take-off in the way that steampunk has done remains to be seen. It may well do if the indefatigable Dan Bloom has anything to do with it: already it seems that some booksellers are using the term, while a number of emerging authors are identifying themselves as exponents of the genre. Bloom himself is currently seeking to establish a literary prize to raise awareness further, using the success of 1957 anti-nuclear novel On the Beach by Australian author Nevil Shute (1899-1960) as an analogy for the impact he hopes a ‘cli-fi’ novel could make. Mind you, it has taken twenty-seven years for steampunk to become the massive subculture that it is today. If ‘cli-fi’ is to achieve what Bloom hopes, it may need to catch on more quickly than that, since in twenty-seven years from now — if emissions keep rising — we may already have seen further significant rises in global mean temperature, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Sir George C. Simpson.Photo: K.E. Woodley, courtesy the Met Office.

Shackleton’s Man Goes Southwas written in ignorance of Bloom’s work of course (since his idea hadn’t yet gone mainstream), but not of Jeter’s, nor the proto-steampunk of Michael Moorcock’s earlier ‘Nomad of the Time Streams’ series. My novel’s opening chapter (originally published as standalone short story ‘Albertololis Disparu’ by the Science Museum in 2009) features such steampunk staples as early telephony, difference engines, airships, steam-powered computing, etc. — plus a Moorcockian ‘sonic attack’ — which prompted one reviewer at the time to write:

But any steampunk stylings in Shackleton’s Man Goes South are quickly dispatched as the novel deliberately moves from such parodic Edwardiana to the challenges presented by the real thing: an overlooked 1911 science fiction short story about climate change that was written in Antarctica by Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s meteorologist (and a future Met Office director) George Clarke Simpson (1878-1965).

Interestingly, the nadir and historical death-knell of what has come to be steampunk’s defining icon was even directly presided over by Scott-survivor Simpson, whose subsequent directorship of the Met Office encompassed both the establishment of its Airship Division and his penning of an obituary of said Division’s late head — M.A. Giblett — following the latter’s death in the R101 disaster in October 1930. This event prompted the Airship Division’s disbanding, and — seven-years before the Hindenberg disaster of 1937 — led to the abandonment in the UK of the development of the airship as a significant form of civil aviation.

Coincidentally, the aforementioned Australian novelist Nevil Shute also worked on the short-lived UK airship programme. As well as writing many novels, including the one that inspired Dan Bloom, Shute played a leading part in the team that built the R100, a competing airship design which was also scrapped following the R101 disaster.

Airships! Genres! Talking of things taking-off, within the world of Shackleton’s Man Goes South it is suggested that the dominant passenger aircraft of our own time — glimpsed in a refugee camp’s fleamarket — is similarly defunct:

Book trailer: The Fountain in the Forest

Praise for The Fountain in the Forest

“That all these stylistic fireworks can illuminate several rich plot lines, each with multiple twists, which an attentive reader will enjoy disentangling, is the best vindication of experimental prose.” Anna Aslanyan, Financial Times

“rich, riveting … White is always convivial company … His books [are] characterised by stylistic innovation, a feeling for place, a love of rogues and rebels. ” Sukhdev Sandhu, The Guardian

“Tony White’s latest novel begins for all the world like a police procedural, following the delightfully named sleuth Rex King as he investigates the grisly murder of man in a Covent Garden theatre. […] Enjoy it as a noir entertainment or as an evocative picture postcard from the past.” Houman Barekat, Spectator

“The Fountain in the Forest can be read with all the pleasure you might expect from a knotty police procedural, a knowledgeably detailed, intriguing and compelling police procedural at that. The story drives ever forward, even when it takes you backwards in time to take a look at the roots of the crime in question. Even when it flip-flops between two distinct time-streams and character identities within the space of a single sentence, the sense throughout is of a steady and satisfying accretion of significant information, i.e clues – exactly what you’d hope for from any good thriller. […] Read, and enjoy.” Nina Allan

“It is absolutely terrific … it can be enjoyed at the level of a thriller, and yet it does all these other fascinating things, and best of all it’s the first in a trilogy … It’s such a good book.” Andy Miller, Backlisted Podcast

“The Fountain in the Forest is a mystery built on mysteries […] it has heart and tenderness and leads us to the most unexpected places and at the centre of all this puzzling is a thriller with deep hooks.” Nick Garrard, STORGY

“A truly intriguing venture into the crime genre by the talented White.” Maxim Jakubowski, Crime Time

“The Fountain in the Forest is fascinating, beautifully written and really original.” Literary Review

Praise for Foxy-T

'This is, in fact, the best book that has ever been written about Brick Lane [...] an amazing tour de force.' Roy Moxham, The Browser

'...this affectionate tale may tell you more about love, longing and ambition in the inner city than a dozen official reports. Indeed, some readers would argue that it captures the flavour of Asian lives in London E1 with more inside-track relish than another novel of 2003: Monica Ali's Brick Lane.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent

'The book I like best is Tony White’s Foxy-T. Ventriloquism among the Cannon Street xeroxing machines, innit?' Sukhdev Sandhu, 3:am Magazine

'"What's your favourite British novel from the past ten years?" The other day I was with a group of friends, and someone posed this question. A few fairly obvious titles were suggested, which gave me time to think. And when it came my turn to speak, I said, "Foxy T by Tony White".' Toby Litt, Guardian

'...made me grin with surprised admiration. Rejecting familiar influences of the past 20 years, White joins a handful of contemporary writers who are proving that the novel has never been more alive. He is a serious, engaging voice of the modern city.' Michael Moorcock, Guardian

'One of this year's key novels [...] an ingenious, beautifully crafted, thrillingly contemporary love story set in the Bangladeshi east end and narrated in that area's distinctive patois [...] A complex, clever book whose future status as a GCSE set text must be assured.' Time Out